Shared server areas

Another EA game that has suffered similar population drops has found a unique solution to the population server problems... shared areas.

Dark Age of Camelot has "clusters"... groups of servers (they function identically to shards) that are all separate... but share certain areas. For example, in UO, this would translate to dungeons and cities... areas where there is no housing. You can bounce back and forth between servers, but your name indicates which server you're from. They require unique character names, so this differentiation became necessary.

Obviously, UO works a bit differently, and there's the problem of item duping and a more complex economy, so I don't know how that would work on the back end. But what it would basically mean at its heart is that you wouldn't give up your houses, anything like that... but non-housing areas could be made shared. For example, if you run through T2A - you'd actually be sharing the area with people from one, two, three, or even four other shards. This would increase the population on the areas that count, without having to move anyone or sacrifice anything like housing. If you run on Chesapeake, you could go to Despise and run shoulder-to-shoulder with someone on Atlantic. We already have language servers (as in the asian shards) that could be grouped together. Cross-shard trades would be greatly simplified... instead of brokers, you'd just meet in say-- Britain, by the bank.

Not all cities need be shared, either. In DAoC, the only city that's shared is the capital city of each realm (the equivalent of Britain on UO) - It's primarily PvP areas and certain dungeon areas that are shared.

It's a wild, out-there idea, but it has really breathed new life into Dark Age of Camelot PvP (there, it's called RvR, because of a variety of things that I won't bother explaining here. the PvP system there is very different. - think large-scale battles. With siege engines.) and might be something to think of to save UO. It would have to be carefully monitored to prevent item duping and abuse, but I think it could really, really help. It would certainly have unforseen effects on the economy, but hey... which is better... an altered economy and such, or no game at all?

Stratics VeteranAlumni

I can tell you now it wouldn't work with cities on the mainlands with housing as there are no seperators for the world outside.. its seamless. Dungeons could work tho (and T2A), and think how interesting a shared Ilshenar would be.

They could even write it off fictionally by grouping "shards" as "gems" and say the "facets" have begun to overlap.

Stratics Veteran

The main problem I see is that it sounds like they've had no end of problems with character transfers between servers ... it's a lot more difficult to implement than a new facet. It would likely require a major reengineering project to make it possible and to proof it against new duping exploits.

The main problem I see is that it sounds like they've had no end of problems with character transfers between servers ... it's a lot more difficult to implement than a new facet. It would likely require a major reengineering project to make it possible and to proof it against new duping exploits.

(but if it could be done, it would be cool)

Click to expand...

basically the summarization of what would have to be done. There would have to be a huge reengineering project. Not to mention a balance of what shards should be combined with other shards. If you put the two most populated servers together theres bound to be an abundance of lag and player issues to resolve. PVP would be rediculous in small dungeons.

*edit*

on a side note, maybe it would just be better to instance cities in away to increase player trade/economy exchange. Then add a battle arena where players can join in and PvP from any shard with additional loses (x2 insurance loss etc/old school pvp only?)

Not likely, since it would trash their character - transfer token business.

While the shards aren't incredibly busy, they aren't completely dead. Running an extra four clusters that are at 10% capacity isn't as expensive as folks like to make it, especially since they've already invested in the infrastructure, hardware and software.

My biggest upset with the character transfer and multi-shard linking is that individual shard history is gradually lost as those who kept it sell it off or just go away.

I know, people don't give a crap about history. They'd rather get a cool green glowy sword from some shadow vendor and prance around Luna with it, regardless of what shard's history it is.

Stratics Veteran

Not likely, since it would trash their character - transfer token business.

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely convinced of that ... it would certainly interfere with x-shard trade transfers, but it would also mean a lot more people would be running into each other and would think about moving to play with or against people they meet.

Stratics Veteran

The main problem I see is that it sounds like they've had no end of problems with character transfers between servers ... it's a lot more difficult to implement than a new facet. It would likely require a major reengineering project to make it possible and to proof it against new duping exploits.

Click to expand...

^ This.

Even Jeremy before she left stated that duping was a HUGE issues with Xfers and that to create an RvR setting would be a nightmare for UO with duping.

I'm not entirely convinced of that ... it would certainly interfere with x-shard trade transfers, but it would also mean a lot more people would be running into each other and would think about moving to play with or against people they meet.

Click to expand...

You could do that with character copies tot he new shard and just using the copy when returning, so nothing really gets transferred.
You could use tokens or whatever which get added to your account then to use on your normal shard.

Stratics is the oldest continually running MMORPG Fansite on the Internet. Founded in 1997 Stratics has served the Ultima Online Community for 18 years. We strive to provide the most complete social experience for Ultima Online players.